Consulting and Advisory Work
The Mactavish business was born out of a research based consulting and advisory business with a dedicated focus on commercial risk and insurance. Past and current advisory clients include:
- Swiss Re
- UBS Warburg
- AIG
- Zurich
- AON
- Morgan Stanley
- SCOR
The Mactavish team has an unrivalled depth of expertise across all aspects of business and financial risk, combined with market leading strategic, analytical and research capabilities.
The Mactavish team is available to undertake bespoke research projects and advisory work to support critical decision making in your business. Please contact Rob Smart at robsmart@mactavishgroup.com to find out more.
Previous Mactavish consulting projects have demonstrated a particular focus on three areas of specialism:
- Structuring rigorous qualitative and quantitative market insight to support strategic decisions in the corporate insurance sector. In particular, we specialise in shaping and executing primary research driven analyses to inform proposition development, e.g.:
- Evaluation of potential investments or product/ service innovation
- Assessment of strategic options, e.g. business unit acquisition/ disposal
- Commercial due diligence work supporting insurance sector private equity transactions, including market & competitive reviews, proposition and business case testing
- Enabling innovative or unusual one-off risk placements through ground-breaking risk analysis work outside the realm of established underwriting or assessment methodologies
By contrast with the familiar generalist names in strategic advisory work who take a generalist approach, Mactavish prides itself on two key differentiators:
- The absence of formulaic thinking or a templated approach. Every piece of work we undertake is uniquely conceived and delivered from first principles. We consider analytical frameworks to be occasionally useful tools of the trade, not a substitute for high quality thinking
- Honesty and transparency in communicating our findings. In our view, a rigorously supported unexpected or negative view remains of great business value. We aim to identify and communicate the right answer, not simply seek out evidence for the expedient one.
Whilst the confidential nature of such assignments typically requires extended client confidentiality, a sample of former testimonials for our advisory work is set out below:
“The Executive Board is full of praise … Mactavish knows what is really going on in the risk business. After a few years of the same old stuff from management consultants, it is great to have some new ideas from [a firm] who knows what they are talking about.”
Head of Group Strategy, Swiss Re.
“I would personally like to thank your team for completing the risk evaluation and presentation… You responded to a difficult situation when little was known of the [business] and the risks associated with it. You wrote your own brief and completed the project in record time. Your [team] responded to our tight time frame… in evaluating this complex risk and in preparing an easily understandable report and presentation… We have used this report to apprise underwriters of the project and allow them to understand the critical issues.”
Divisional Strategy Director, AON
“The Mactavish process delivered a depth of insight that had not previously been achieved into the underwriters’ view of and approach to our risk, exceeding our expectations in terms of both quality and approach. Mactavish really proved able to elicit and consume vast amounts of information and boil it down appropriately, harnessing important messages and creating hugely valuable output not only to feed systematically into the insurance market, but also developing our own knowledge of risk across the business. This framework may very well be useful internally for senior management and Board level risk evaluations, and creates a logical starting point for portraying the hazard risks facing the company.”
Head of Risk & Insurance Management, Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.
